Ukrainian forces must leave region, Putin says

Russian trade union members parade in Red Square in Moscow to commemorate May Day, the first such celebration since 1991. The Soviet tradition was revived in the wake of patriotic fervor over Crimea.

Russian trade union members parade in Red Square in Moscow to...

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin of Russia told Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Thursday that Ukraine must remove its military from the southeastern region of the country to resolve the showdown there with pro-Russian militants who have seized several official buildings, the Kremlin said.

"Putin emphasized that it was imperative today to withdraw all military units from the southeastern regions, stop the violence and immediately launch a broad national dialogue as part of the constitutional reform process involving all regions and political forces," the Russian government said in a statement.

Russia has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for escalating the situation and has accused the government in Kiev of deploying 11,000 soldiers in the region. The acting Ukrainian president, Oleksandr Turchinov, said Wednesday that the security services had lost control of the region to separatists who have seized government buildings in about a dozen towns.

Draft reinstated

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Russia now an 'adversary'

WASHINGTON - After two decades of trying to build a partnership with Russia, NATO now feels compelled to start treating Moscow as an adversary, the alliance's second-ranking official said Thursday.

"Clearly the Russians have declared NATO as an adversary, so we have to begin to view Russia no longer as a partner but as more of an adversary than a partner," said Alexander Vershbow, the deputy secretary-general of NATO.

Vershbow said Russia appears to want to reimpose its hegemony "under the guise of a defense of the Russian world."

Associated Press

On Thursday, Turchinov issued a decree reinstating military conscription, saying men 18 and above who have not reached their 25th birthday will be drafted. The decree, which is unlikely to have any immediate effect on Kiev's efforts to bolster security, said the move was intended to h maintain the armed forces - estimated nationally to total no more than 70,000 men - in "the highest state of readiness for combat."

Christiane Wirtz, a spokeswoman for the German chancellor, did not address Putin's comments, but said Merkel had urged him to intervene in the case of seven military monitors, including four German soldiers, affiliated with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who are being held hostage by a separatist mayor in the pro-Russian stronghold of Slovyansk.

"The chancellor reminded President Putin of Russia's responsibility as a member of the OSCE and called on the president to use his influence," Wirtz said. The conversation was initiated by Merkel, the Kremlin said.

In a report from the Russian news agency Interfax, the pro-Russian movement in Slovyansk said it had freed two of three captured members of the Ukrainian security services in exchange for the release of an unspecified number of its own activists. The report could not be confirmed by independent sources.

In a video posted online earlier this week, the three men were shown beaten and bloodied. They were filmed wearing nothing more than their shirts and underwear.

Offices seized

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In a sign of the continuing insecurity in the southeast, the Ukrainian National Information Agency said pro-Russian militants seized a police station and the state prosecutor's office in Donetsk on Thursday. The Ukrainian flag on the prosecutor's office was hauled down and burned as several hundred people waving Russian and even Soviet flags gathered nearby, the agency reported.

Russia and the separatists have denied that they are working together, and Putin has said there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. He made similar claims during the annexation of Crimea, however, and then later acknowledged the existence of a Russian operation.

Also, Thursday was May Day, and in Russia tens of thousands gathered in Red Square to mark the celebration of the working man. News announcers crowed that it was the first time the celebration has been held in the square since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, after which the Kremlin studiously kept any activity with political overtones out of there.